Transnational eGlobal Inc. (TeGI) announced on February 17 it has tapped First Digital Finance Corp. (FDFC) a financial technology company powering the installment payment platform BillEase, to allow its customers to pay for flights over time.
“This new feature gives customers greater access to local and international travel by offering them a quick and simple way to book and pay later,” TeGi, the travel company behind the Philippines’s airline booking platform tripmoba.com, said in a statement.
“Traveling can be expensive whether you’re traveling locally or across the world,” TeGI President Carlo M. Severino, was quoted in a statement as saying. “As a booking platform for new generations of travelers, we are pleased that our partnership with BillEase will give our customers a simple payment option to make booking airline tickets more affordable”.
A trip to an exciting destination in Southeast Asia or island in the Philippines could be a dream vacation, but the upfront cost is a major concern especially for Filipino travelers, according to Severino. With this new payment solution, customers will have the flexibility to choose how and when they want to pay, tailor their travel budget and ultimately enjoy their dream vacation, he added.
Customers can apply for credit at checkout and pay through BillEase, he said. BillEase will enable users with no bank accounts or credit card to book domestic and international flights on monthly installments and repay them over a period of three months, six months or 12 months, with interest rate between 0 percent to 2.49 percent.
“Together with [TeGI’s app], we see a huge opportunity to empower Filipino travelers by offering flexibility that reduces the anxiety related to paying everything in advance,” FDFC Co-Founder and CEO Georg Steiger was quoted in the statement as saying. “Millennial and Gen Z travelers seek awesome experiences and we want to ensure that their payment journey is also a great experience.”
Founded in 2015, Manila-based FDFC provides financing and payment processing services to merchants across online and mobile channels in the Philippines. The company is the first to launch this service with Lazada in 2017 and has processed hundreds of thousands of payments on the platform.
With its digital credit-card service, the company is addressing what it calls “massive credit gap” in the Philippines, where it aims to potentially reach millions of Filipinos outside the traditional banking system.